Modern ovens are generally constructed with an inner oven liner mounted in a spaced apart relationship within an outer oven body to provide a space between the oven body and liner. This space usually contains thermal insulation and often contains oven components such as thermostats, switches, rheostats, electrical wiring and the like. In order to repair and maintain such components, it is sometimes necessary to gain access to this insulated space. The previously developed ovens generally have not been designed to allow easy access to this space. In fact, it often has been necessary heretofore to completely remove the oven liner from the outer oven body to gain access to this space in order to make relatively minor repairs. The inconvenience and expense of such repair procedures have created a need for an oven which allows easy access to the space surrounding the oven liner within the oven body without sacrificing oven appearance, durability or ease of construction.
The extreme heat of ovens, and particularly self-cleaning ovens, requires that the oven liner and the oven door be thermally insulated during the operation of the oven. To provide such thermal insulation, the oven liner generally is mounted within the oven body with insulation between the body and liner, and a thermally insulating gasket is provided to form a seal between the oven liner and the oven door. In many instances, this gasket has been carried by the oven door. U.S. Pat. No. 3,066,212 to Hurko discloses mounting a gasket on the outer face of the oven body. Regardless of the position of prior gaskets, their only function generally has been to provide a thermal seal between the door and the oven liner cavity.
Previously developed ovens have not utilized an insulating gasket as an insulating support for the oven liner, nor has the gasket been used to structurally support other components of the oven such as a front oven panel. In addition, gaskets used in heretofore developed ovens usually have been installed so as to require difficult disassembly or replacement. Such construction has been found needlessly expensive, and the permanent installation hinders the repair or replacement of the gasket. Thus, a need has arisen for an oven gasket that provides improved heat sealing while performing multiple functions within the oven to reduce structural duplicity, and to provide ease of installation and removal for repair or for replacement.